A vain Charles Darwin and a near-psychotic Queen Victoria are found in The Pirates! Band of Misfits, a rollicking adventure from the stop-motion masters behind Chicken Run and the Wallace & Gromit masterpieces.

Frank Gabrenya, For The Columbus Dispatch

Can you imagine an American studio making an animated family film with a vain Charles Darwin and a near-psychotic Queen Victoria as the key villains?

No, only the Brits - particularly the irreverent wags at Aardman Animation - have the tea bags to pull off such a cheeky satire.

Darwin and Her Majesty are found in The Pirates! Band of Misfits, a rollicking adventure from the stop-motion masters behind Chicken Run and the Wallace & Gromit masterpieces.

In the mid-19th century, the generically named Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) leads his crew of lively rogues on less-than-successful raids of passing ships in the Caribbean. Yet he is convinced he'll finally win the Pirate of the Year title he has long coveted.

He doesn't have much of a chance, considering the caliber of the competition, until he stumbles on a freak opportunity.His crew has raided the HMS Beagle, on which Darwin (David Tennant) informs him that the Captain's prized parrot, Polly, is really the world's last surviving dodo bird.

That sends the Captain and his scurvy mates off to London to claim a top scientific prize and alleged fortunes for the discovery - only to run headlong into Victoria (Imelda Staunton), who hates pirates with an unbridled venom.

Pirates! is chock-full of Aardman's trademark comic detail and secondary characters, who add extra fun to the mix. At times, the slapstick threatens to swallow the movie whole, but a dose of droll British wit is always waiting to calm things down.

The stop-motion technique, occasionally abetted by computer animation, hasn't been livelier or more fluid. Although the third dimension isn't exploited much, the lighting and pacing are first-class.

The shakiest aspect of the production might be that pirates are becoming a stale commodity in the marketplace. Parents need not cringe: These swashbucklers are more a floating frat party than the murderous plunderers of real history.

Peter Lord, an Aardman founder and longtime producer, shares directing credits with veteran animator Jeff Newitt. Although their work seems more calculated and slicker than that of the studio's resident genius, Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park, they deliver enough "yo-ho-ho" to amuse adults and dazzle children.

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